Index of new media

The LA Times has published an article by thirtysomething creator Marshall Herskovitz that responds to criticism of his show quarterlife, which was hyped beforehand as the first television-quality production for the Web.

The show bombed on YouTube and went on to bomb on network television.

Despite the show’s poor performance, Herskovitz thinks quarterlife is not just successful, but a hit, and challenges the coverage it has received from Podcasting News, the LA Times and others:

IT was a surreal moment when I learned of the “demise” of my online series “quarterlife” on the front page of Tuesday’s L.A. Times. Mark Twain notwithstanding, reports of said demise are not only premature but laughable.

To be fair, the paper printed a correction the next day, but the error didn’t happen by accident. The headline referred to the Big Picture column by Patrick Goldstein in that day’s Calendar section, and while Patrick didn’t write that headline or the one on latimes.com [” ‘Quarterlife’ Gets a Web Smackdown”], both reflect the sentiments in Patrick’s piece.

Goldstein — whom I like, by the way, and think is a very smart writer — put forth the thesis that “quarterlife” represents a “culture clash” between old and new media, wherein two old media types — Ed Zwick and myself — had “arrogantly” blundered into the new media world with the message that we could do it better, and as a result had received an astonishingly negative response online.

He described charts Podcasting News published about our performance on YouTube as looking “like a graph of Ron Paul’s delegate count” and quoted PN’s claim that we were getting fewer views than “sleeping kitties, graffiti videos or even a clip of Sims in labor.” With no other performance figures cited in the article, one was left to assume that “quarterlife” had in fact tanked on the Internet.

Yes, we did call quarterlife a bomb.

We did say that quarterlife episodes were getting fewer views than “sleeping kitties, graffiti videos and even a video of Sims in labor.”

And we did print a graph that showed the viewing trends for quarterlife on YouTube:

Herkovitz doesn’t really challenge the facts here; instead, he says that they aren’t important.

Ed Roberts (photo, right), KC Weather Podcast, and music podcast, Looking Out The Window, led a PodCamp Midwest session called “Join the Conversation: (Ed Roberts is not the guy who invented the Altair computer, nor the guy who founded the disability movement and caused wheelchair-accessible parking spaces to be made availalbe)

The New Media Triangle (barriers to entry for media) Production/Distribution/Marketing. We’re breaking down those barriers - production via our inexpensive computers. Distribution: we have the Internet. Marketing: people can do word of mouth promotion.

Engaging people is what it’s all about: (cool video “Free Hugs” guy)

Lessons about conversation: People have ben reluctant to step out and communicate, folks don’t even know their close neighbors. But, once one person begins to engage others, more people feel less hesitant to join in. People become willing to champion your conversation, your agenda.

Getting involved in the conversation has benefits beyond just your own issue or program.

“Google is your friend” - do ego-surfing to see where people are talking about you (Google yourself). Find conversations already happening about your topic. Join in. Google Alerts will come and bring those mentions and conversations to you. Google Analytics can show you statistics for traffic and who is visiting your website.

“Social Media is your friend” Use Twitter to engage people in conversation- search Twitter, and other social networking, social media sites, to find other people with similar interests, and engage with them.

“RSS is your friend ” - Technorati, a blog aggregator, can track changes in feeds around the world, and you can subscribe to that search, and feed it into your feed reader. Tweetscan.com can also do this. EveryZing.com used to be called PodZinger and searches audio files which it has indexed. (demonstrated using a search of “Ed Roberts” - search yielded his last 2 weather podcasts, and a mention on CC Chapman’s Accident Hash. Very cool.).

So many ways to find where and how people are talking on the Internet. But we need to be cognizant of living in the fishbowl, only talking to other people in your little insular circle of friends. Be sure to look at communities outside your online bubble, outside your echo chamber.

Include listeners’ comments and voicemails *in* your show, and that encourages people to interact with the show, and with you, contributing ideas and content.

If you’re trying to make money with new media, IDC has some good news for you.

U.S. Internet advertising is growing like mad - up by 25% in 2007 to over 25 billion dollars. And the money’s not all going to Google.
Research Highlights: 

• As people spend more time on the Internet, companies are moving their advertising dollars from traditional media to online media.
• Total U.S. Internet ad spending in the fourth quarter of 2007 (4Q07) grew nearly 28% over the same quarter in 2006 to $7.3 billion.
• Google’s net U.S. market share declined for the first time in two years due to slower growth in domestic fourth quarter sales. The market leader’s net U.S. Internet advertising market share was down 0.5 percentage points to 23.7% last quarter compared to 3Q07.

“If a merger between Microsoft’s new media business and Yahoo! would come to pass, the combined entity would have a net U.S. advertising market share of about 17% based on our 4Q07 data,” says IDC’s Karsten Weide. “It would not quite bring Microsoft-Yahoo! to where Google is in online advertising in the U. S., but it would give them a much better fighting chance than if they went it alone.”

Wizzard, the podcasting network that recently announced it had served up over a billion podcasts in 2007, announced today that its common shares have been approved for listing on the American Stock Exchange (”AMEX”).

Wizzard is tentatively scheduled to begin trading during the week of February 4th, 2008. The company will be traded under the ticker symbol “WZE”. Previously, the company traded as “WIZD” on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board.

“We’re very excited to have finally reached such a tremendous milestone for our company and shareholders,” said Chris Spencer, Wizzard CEO. “We expect Wizzard’s shareholders to benefit from the increased trading liquidity and investor visibility that comes with trading on the AMEX.”

The AMEX listing approval is contingent on the Company being in compliance with all applicable listing requirements on the date that it begins trading.

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg has a provocative review of Dell’s XPS One desktop today, saying that “has the guts, design to compete with iMac.”

He explains:

“This new Dell is no mere iMac clone. It makes its own style statement, even though it shares the same 20-inch widescreen display and a similar Intel dual-core processor with the base-model iMac. Where the iMac is squarish and silver, the XPS One is all black and rectangular, with speakers attached to the sides and a wide glass base. It looks more like a small TV set than a computer and, in fact, comes with a built-in TV tuner.

The Dell XPS One is the first Windows all-in-one desktop I’ve tested that I believe matches or exceeds the iMac in hardware design. That’s no small feat, especially coming from Dell.

Unlike the Apple, for example, the Dell has a built-in slot for camera memory cards. It comes standard with a wireless keyboard and mouse, which cost extra on the iMac. Its screen can be turned off with the touch of a button without turning off the computer itself. Its USB and headphone ports are arrayed conveniently on the side, instead of mainly at the rear, as on the iMac.”

It’s great to see Dell coming out with hardware that can give Apple some competition.

There’s no competition, though, when it comes to deciding what’s the best platform for new media.

In this episode of the New Media Update, Podcasting News’ Elisabeth McLaury Lewin talks with Mark Rotblat, one of the founders of TubeMogul.com, a web video distribution and analytics startup.

TubeMogul has developed an interesting tool for video producers. It lets you upload your video once, and TubeMogul distributes the video to whichever popular video sharing sites you choose. They provide tracking and analytics capabilities, too.

In this interview, Mark reveals how TubeMogul got started. He also explains how the site can be used to distribute video to multiple destinations, and why you might want to do that.

 New Media Update 04 - TubeMogul.com [7:50m]: Play Now | Download

Australian vocalist Kylie Minogue appears to be the first mega-diva to launch her own social networking site.

KylieKonnect.com lets fans blog, upload images and video and interact with other users. By letting fans blog and post videos, the site has the potential to be the locus of attention for Kylie fans.

Currently the site is short on content, a bit of a ghost town, and, yes, Kylie is our only friend. But it’s interesting to see a global pop star experimenting with new media.

Along with groups like Radiohead and Madonna leaving their traditional labels behind, Minogue’s move is part of a growing trend towards musicians interacting with their audiences in new ways, especially through the Internet.
The site’s designers, New Visions Mobile, believe it is more mobile and flexible than social network sites like MySpace and Facebook, already important marketing tools for pop stars.

“The whole thing is set up so that Kylie can update her blog and have a closer connection with fans,” said Julia McNally, business development director at New Visions Mobile.

Kylie introduces her new site below.

Watch Now:

 Kylie Minogue Makes Bunny Ears [0:48m]: Play Now | Download